From WNYKRC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. In 2002, Talkers Magazine rated Don Imus, the third greatest radio or TV talk show host of all time, behind Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern and ahead of Larry King.

Heard on 90 radio stations and simulcast on MSNBC, Imis in the morning reaches roughly

three and a half million people every single week, or used to reach.

He's been canned because last week he said something sexist and racist and indisputably

offensive, but of course he or his staff did that every week.

Matter of fact, both teams played most of the game like a bunch of polio-stricken bitches last night.

Matter of fact, the Knicks got booed more in their own house than Rosie O'Donnell in the live sex show, I'm as man.

It had to be one heck of a slow news week for the media to be shocked, shocked by a show hiding in plain

sight for decades, raking in mountains of cash. It made its fortune with a two-part format,

one part reveling in sex and routinely offending blacks, gays, and women, and one that hosted

high-brow political discussion with the media elite.

Tim Russer, Jeff Greenfield, and Frank Rich regularly appeared on that part,

and if the show hadn't been killed, they probably would have again.

As CBS Newsman and I Miss Regular Bob Schiefer told The Washington Post this week,

I'm not going to sever a relationship with someone who has apologized for what he said.

I hate what he did, but he's still my friend. In America, we are inclined to celebrate tastemakers who are utterly lacking in taste. Not all of us, of course. Back in May of 2000,

Clarence Page, Washington columnist for the Chicago Tribune, asked Imas to take a pledge.

Are you raising your hand?

I have it up.

Okay, number one, I, Don Imus.

I don't Amos.

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